Nowadays, television receivers, employing liquid crystal display (LCD) or a plasma display panel (PDP), reduced in thickness as compared to a cathode ray tube (CRT), which has long been used since the start of television broadcasting, have been proposed, and are being put to use to take the place of the CRT. In particular, a color liquid crystal display, employing a color liquid crystal display panel, may be driven at low power consumption, and is available at costs which tend to become lower. Hence, the color liquid crystal display is promising as electrical display, and is felt to come into widespread use in accelerative fashion.
The color liquid crystal display is predominantly of the backlight system in which a transmissive color liquid display panel is illuminated from its back side for demonstrating a color picture. As a light source for a backlight device, a CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp), emitting white light with the aid of a fluorescent tube, is now in use extensively.